Here in my second-to-last installment in my blog series looking at Ken Ham’s book, Six Days: The Age of the Earth and the Decline of the Church, I am going to take a look at chapters 9 and 10…Enjoy.
Chapter 9: The Necessity of a Historical Adam
If you have been keeping up with this blog series, by now, you probably know the drill when it comes to Six Days: stuff as many Christian scholars and pastors as possible in every chapter and then condemn them as compromisers. Chapter 9 in Six Days is no different. In this chapter those whom Ken Ham puts into his line of fire are Christianity Today contributer Richard Ostling, John Lennox, N.T. Wright, John Walton, Denis Alexander, Alister McGrath, Tremper Longman, Peter Enns, Daniel Harrell, the BioLogos Foundation, Dr. Francis Collins, Karl Giberson, Deborah Haarsma, Dennis Venema, William Dembski, Hank Hanegraaff…and then Peter Enns again.
Whew! Sixteen people in twenty-three pages!
In any case, one of the recurring themes in, not only this chapter, but the book as a whole is what I like to call, “Mr. Ham Speaketh With a Forked Tongue.” Namely, his insistence that belief in a historical Adam is not a salvation issue, but then in the very next breath saying, “But it is a biblical authority issue…and a gospel issue…and the gospel is about salvation…and if you don’t believe in a historical Adam then you are undermining the gospel…which is about salvation!”
Of course, such double-speak is pretty much par for the course for Ken Ham.
That being said, although most of what Ham puts forth in chapter 9 is, to be kind, somewhat ill-informed, I have to be honest—there is one key point that he makes early on that is valid. And it sort of hurts me to admit it, because it involves me criticizing a particular view by N.T. Wright, whom I find to be a brilliant New Testament scholar.
Primal Pairs and Metaphors
Obviously, all the scholars that Ham criticizes in chapter 9 have one thing in common: they do not believe Genesis 2-3 is attempting to give a “just the facts ma’am” account of a literal historical couple named Adam and Eve. That doesn’t mean, though, that they all read Genesis 2-3 in the exact same way. Some of them (NT Wright, Dennis Alexander, and William Dembski) still take Genesis 2-3 to be talking about some kind of “primal pair” taken from among a larger population of either human beings or ape-like creatures, endowed somehow with the image of God, but who then sinned.
Ham (actually quite correctly) sees this as a wholly inconsistent position: “They do not see the need for a historical Genesis [Note: he really means Genesis 1-11], but they are unwilling to go as far as eliminating Adam and Eve entirely.” I find such a view incredibly strained (forgive me, NT Wright—but thou hadst erred!). Let’s just admit it: Genesis 2-3 really does portray Adam and Eve as the first two human beings—that’s undeniable. But—and here is way proper genre recognition is so important—Genesis 2-3 (just like Genesis 1-11 as a whole) simply is not trying to do history…at all. And since it’s not trying to do history, it simply is wholly unnecessary to try to come up with a convoluted interpretation of Genesis 2-3 that still is somewhat, kind of, historical in a way…but not really, but sorta!
And that leads us to the other way many of the other scholars (Lennox, McGrath, Longman, Enns) read Genesis 2-3—as Adam and Eve being metaphorical or mythical representations of humanity as a whole. The rationale for this view (one that I agree with) comes down basic genre recognition and reading Genesis 2-3 in light of its ancient Near Eastern (ANE) historical and literary contexts. Allow me to provide just a few quotes:
John Lennox: “When we are dealing with a text that was produced in a culture distant from our own, both in time and geography, what we think the natural reading is may not have been a natural meaning for those to whom the text was originally addressed.”
Now, all that is entirely true—it is all about context and genre. But Ken Ham’s response? [Lennox’s] “teaching on Genesis and his compromise with evolution and millions of years undermines the authority of the Word of God, in spite of his sincere intentions to the contrary.”
Tremper Longman: After talking about the need to read Genesis 1 in light of ANE concepts, Longman says this about the question of a historical Adam: “Whether there’s sort of one moment when God says, ‘This is the first human being’…or whether Adam stands for mankind—after all, the Hebrew word Adam does mean ‘mankind’—that’s a different question. And one that, at least, I haven’t completely resolved in my own thinking yet. There’s still open questions.”
Now, I think that is a very thoughtful and honest answer. But Ken Ham’s response? “…there are no ‘open questions’ concerning whether or not Adam was…the first human or whether he simply represented many humans. There are no open questions about whether God created by a miraculous act or whether he used evolutionary means. Scripture is incredibly clear on these points…. And yet, academics like Longman are teaching our students that they cannot trust the plain meaning of Scripture because there are still ‘open question’ that are fueled by the evolutionary worldview.”
No, Mr. Ham—your comment illustrates perfectly the very thing John Lennox talked about in the previous quote. If one refuses to consider the original historical, literary, and cultural contexts of any biblical passage, one is bound to mistake one’s own modern interpretation for the original, inspired revelation.
No Chapter Would Be Complete Without a Dig at BioLogos and Peter Enns
And what about BioLogos? Well, Ham points out that on their website BioLogos does not take a specific stance on the historicity of Adam, but rather encourages scholarly work on such questions. Well, apparently, encouraging scholarly work rubbed Ken Ham the wrong way, for he responded with, “Right away, readers know what the academics at BioLogos put their trust in when it comes to creation—and it is not the Word of God.”
Ham then proceeds to criticize Francis Collins, Karl Giberson, Deborah Haarsma, and Dennis Venema (all associated with BioLogos) for (a) revealing that the human genome conclusively shows that modern human beings can be traced back to an original group of about 10,000, about 100,000 years ago, (b) then stating that obviously Genesis 2-3 shouldn’t be read as making literal and biological claims because the genetic evidence shows otherwise. Ham’s response? “Once again, members of BioLogos are ultimately placing their faith in man’s fallible word, rather than God’s infallible Word.”
The irony is that in his other books, Ham gleefully quotes from the findings of Collins’ human genome project and claims that (contrary to 19th century racists and early 20th century Nazis) it “proves” that there is only one race—the human race.
That’s right, Mr. Ham—Collins’ work does prove that. And that same work proves modern humans emerged 100,000 years ago from an initial population of about 10,000. And by the way, no one for the past 100 years, except for the most fringe racists elements still in our society, has thought there was more than one race. In that respect, Collins’ work basically affirmed something we already knew.
And what about Peter Enns? Well, Ham’s criticism of Enns can be easily summed up this way: Enns insists on reading Genesis 1-11 in light of its ANE context. That’s right—Enns draws Ham’s ire because he insists on that pesky exegetical step of considering context and genre. Ham writes, “In other words, there is nothing special about the Bible—it is a product of its time, and we cannot trust that the history it presents is accurate.”
Amazingly, Ham doesn’t get it. Enns isn’t saying Genesis 1-11 is giving inaccurate history—he’s saying it’s not trying to do history in the first place. He’s saying that Genesis 1-11 has to be understood in light of ANE cosmologies, and that ANE cosmologies were not trying to give historical or scientific information.
It is here, on the topic of ANE cosmologies, that Ham makes such an absurd and baseless claim, that I really did let out a laugh when I read it: “Now, it is important to understand that ancient Near Eastern cosmologies did play a role in writing of the Pentateuch—they were errors that the Pentateuch corrected! When Moses authored the five books of the Bible, he presented the true version of the events at Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and so one. These inspired books not only shared truth given by God, but they also corrected the erroneous views of the surrounding nations.”
Brawndo! It’s What Plants Crave!
Ham’s answer immediately reminded me of a scene from the movie Idiocracy, when Luke Wilson is trying to convince the incredibly stupid White House cabinet members that, in order to end the drought, they should water the plants with water, and not the Gatorade-like drink called “Brawndo.” The cabinet members, though, don’t get it. They’ve always been told through advertisements that “Brawndo is what plants crave!” And so, despite Wilson’s efforts to convince them otherwise, their brains can’t get out of the mental loop of the Brawndo advertisements.
Similarly, it seems that no matter how many times someone suggests to Ken Ham that (a) Genesis 1-11 should be read in its ANE context, and that (b) ANE cosmologies weren’t trying to do history, Ham just keeps going back to that same mental loop: “Sure ANE context is important, but it shouldn’t determine the plain meaning of Scripture! ANE cosmologies got their history wrong! Genesis 1-11 corrected their historical mistakes!”
Brawndo! It’s what plants crave! It has electrolytes!
Chapter 10: Genesis—Scripture Interprets Scripture
Let’s get to the point: chapter 10 is pretty much useless. After just asserting that the scientific evidence confirms the scriptural account (it doesn’t, primarily because Genesis 1-11 isn’t doing history or science in the first place), and after stating, “it is paramount that we understand how to read Scripture on its own terms” (news flash—that is precisely what Ham refuses to do), Ham then takes six pages to go back to his obsession with the six days of Genesis 1 (i.e. see chapter 5), during which he continues to dismiss modern astronomy and geology as nothing more than “man’s fallible dating methods and unproven assumptions.”
He then takes four pages to argue for a global flood again (i.e. see chapter 8), and argues that Noah and his family were “brilliant engineers,” because when God made Adam and Eve, they had great intellectual capabilities, and although that gradually diminished because of sin, by Noah’s day, human beings still had tremendous intellectual abilities—and therefore, Noah and his family were obviously capable of constructing an Ark…“and probably better!—as we do today.” [Note: Absolutely none of that is in the Bible, and there is absolutely no evidence for any of it].
And finally, he takes five more pages to rehash his argument for a historical Adam and Eve (i.e. see chapter 9). Here, he continues to maintain that a historical Adam and Eve is the foundation of the gospel, and that “without this literal history, the very foundation of the gospel message is undermined.” And then he is quick to point out that he’s not saying it’s a salvation issue…just a biblical authority and gospel issue (which is about salvation!).
And, perhaps most blatantly in the entire book, Ham displays his absolute disdain for proper exegesis and biblical scholarship: “Literally, God formed Adam from the dust and breathed into him life. Could the text be any clearer? Eve, the account tells us, was created from Adam’s side. It does not take any academic training to understand the plain meaning of this passage.”
…I’m really getting the feeling that Ken Ham uses “academic” like a cuss word.
Then, near the end of chapter, he asks, “When we deny the existence of Adam and Eve, then how do we explain the origin of sin and death in the world? And if we cannot explain how sin and death came into the world…then what was the purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection? Why was the Atonement even necessary?”
Allow me to answer that: First, maybe we don’t explain the origin of sin and death in the world; maybe Genesis 2-3 is simply challenging us to acknowledge that we sin and are therefore sinners.
Second, the purpose of Christ death and resurrection and atonement is to save sinners like me and to bring all of creation under Christ’s sovereignty. That isn’t somehow negated because the Bible doesn’t pinpoint the date and time of the first sin.
But what do I know? I’m just a Christian academic who tries to read the Bible in light of its original context.
Hey, at least the plants at my house can grow.
I don’t actually have a big problem with Ham suggesting that the Creation story corrects the ANE cosmologies from which much of the imagery was derived. This in fact seems consistent with God working to redeem and restore the world. Israel had just left Egypt after some 400 years and were probably thoroughly infused with Egyptian worldview and their creation myths. Reframing these stories to represent the true nature of the creator God seems a fairly logical step in developing the identity of the nation of Israel.
Unless I’ve misunderstood your point here.
Simply put, Genesis 1-11 DOES challenge and correct what the ANE stories taught about the gods, human beings, and the created order. But the ANE stories weren’t attempting to give history, therefore, Genesis 1-11 is essentially correcting ANE theology/worldview…not faulty ANE historical claims, because they weren’t making historical claims in the first place.